We're told the students won't face any discipline — why would they? — but that "Following the incident and the reaction caused by the image, the college is planning to host a number of race awareness seminars for staff and students."

“Some of our multicultural and nontraditional students feel the environment on campus is not welcoming to all," [the Whitewater chancellor Beverly] Kopper wrote. “Over and over, the students in attendance expressed their need to be heard and for campus to do more than just talk.”...

"There's policy for everything else on campus except for racial injustice, not just for the Black people, but for all minorities," [said one student].

There's a policy for everything else? Is there a policy protecting freedom of expression on social media? Is there a policy for when it's appropriate for university officials to describe student speech as "racist"? The university should want all students to feel welcome, but part of welcoming all students is taking care to understand and not to mischaracterize what individual students are saying and doing.

The universities are lost. They have achieved full Red-Guardism. There is no room for liberty in the U. There is no room for any thought outside the diktat of what is currently approved by the Great Thinkers of our time. This is not liberalism. It is a rejection of liberty, a full-press indoctrination. The end result will not be what anyone wants. I watch what goes on from Vassar to Yale, Wisconsin to Duke and it's finally reached a point that has been 40 years+ in the making. A facial is now deemed too racist to participate in. Must we now get approved colors of facial masks? The real issue is that there are no adults with a firm enough philosophical base to look at this and reject it out of hand. Instead of teaching the young minds full of mush, they're taking their instruction from the young minds full of mush. Indeed, the Chancellor plays his/her part. Nice University you have there. It'd be a shame to lose it. Wait…you already have.

So I go to Tijauana on spring break from UW, have my picture taken trying on a sombrero (yes, they make them to sell to gringo tourists). I send the pic to my fraternity bros (or sisters). Am I now now guilty of racial insensitivity?Why?

Terry: because you're probably a white male. And if you aren't, well, you're probably one in spirit.

The biggest mistake one can make in understanding these people is to assume there is actual logic and reason involved. It's just hate and actual racism against Western civilization and the culture that fomented it.

Hey hey ho ho, western civ has got to go.

They weren't joking, you know. Now those 70s hippies are Deans And tenured profs.

I greatly fear that the negroes of Wisconsin are threatened with extinction. They have grown so sensitive that it seems possible that some of them could be struck dead by the utterance of a single word. If a photo of two white people getting a facial causes such nostrums, what would happen if someone snuck up behind a #blacklivesmatter fest and shouted "jigaboo!" or "junglebunny!"?

I have an idea for a reality TV show - "Alone in the Motherland". Each week, we will take an young Diversity Studies diva to a different city in sub-Saharan Africa, drop them off 20 miles from the airport with a $20 bill but NO CELL PHONE, and see if they can last for a day.

We're told the students won't face any discipline — why would they? — but that "Following the incident and the reaction caused by the image, the college is planning to host a number of race awareness seminars for staff and students."

Many people view awareness seminars as punishment. Especially if mandatory.

Need WHAT to be heard? Voice an opinion and stand up a support it. I have no idea if I will react to what you want. But I first have to know what "it"is. 90% of success in life is showing up. My experience tells me that the whiners that claim they dont have voice, dont show up. So for those people, they are 100% correct. I don't hear their voice.They haven't earned my ear.

Terry: "So I go to Tijauana on spring break from UW, have my picture taken trying on a sombrero (yes, they make them to sell to gringo tourists.) I send the pic to my fraternity bros (or sisters). Am I now now guilty of racial insensitivity?"

Not necessarily, but you're guilty of gender insensitivity for acknowledging only the two cis genders instead of the plethora of hybrids that are known to exist on college campi, and you're also guilty of cultural appropriation for using Mexican hats in the photo. The use of the pejorative "gringo" to identify Norte Americanos could also be considered to be racist unless you intended to refer to white Anglos, only. Plus, the use of a Mexican term like "gringo" might in and of itself compound the cultural appropriation charge. To avoid confusion and and another potential cultural faux pas (note: it is acceptible to appropriate white European terms like faux pas) you should be more specific in this regard. "White Muthas" has often been used as a substitue pejorative to refer to Anglo gringos on many UW campi. Be careful, however, as the use of "Muthas" might, itself, be considered to be such an appropriation from a different minority culture altogether at UW-M, but maybe not at UW-WW. You might want to check with the anthropology department for a ruling before using that term, then make sure you get the ruling in writing and have the chairman of the AA studies department intial it.

If you think this whole thing through you could be ahead by cancelling the trip to TJ and spending your spring break taking a comprehensive sensitivity course. As things now stand, you don't appear to have the skills required to withstand a full-on SJW attack, i.e., you're never going to graduate from UW unless you upgrade you game. An alternative would be to quit wasting your tuition money and just move to TJ full time. Just sayin.

"The university should want all students to feel welcome, but part of welcoming all students is taking care to understand and not to mischaracterize what individual students are saying and doing" Ah, they should, shouldn't they, and take care and not mischaracterize. Then again, they are a modern university beholden to Prog standards and interests. So they don't and they won't. But it's sweetly old-fashioned of you to insist that universities should actually care equally about all students. As long as you realize that such misguided universalism is itself an exercise in White Privilege.

Since white males are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, predatory abusive evil bigots they are not entitled to a presumption of innocence, due process, protections against self incrimination, the right to legal representation, freedom of speech and expression and or other legal protections which normal people have as rights.

White males, in most university setting, don't even have the right to try contest their presumed guilt.

If you now point out that reason is being mau-maued here, and that there is a degree of immorality in the contrast between the administration's reaction to the swastika/Hitler incident and the OMG RACIAL FACIALS controversy, you are volunteering to be the one with the noose on your neck standing on the chair on the platform for the next struggle meeting.

You will promptly find out just how cowardly your colleagues are if you say what any rational person would say. Your house may be picketed.

On the other hand, if your self-respect demands it, you might be able to get away with taking a legalistic umbrage at this. Being in blackface and then posting pictures is bad because you are showing photos of racially charged behavior. Having facials is not racially charged behavior, therefore posting photos of facials is not racially charged.

If you are careful, you might be able to get away with that.

Ann, you MUST know what nonsense this is:The university should want all students to feel welcome, but part of welcoming all students is taking care to understand and not to mischaracterize what individual students are saying and doing.

That is absolutely not what is taught or said in any racial training offered on campuses nowadays. What is taught is pure racial guilt, and individuals are forced to publicly admit their guilt.

You have to understand the rules of this game. The crazier the claim is, the more vicious the response must be to anyone who points out the insanity.

"Some of our multicultural and nontraditional students feel the environment on campus is not welcoming to all,"

What a strange strange description. What is a multicultural or nontradional student? What straight forward description is she trying to avoid? Or does she think such obscure identifications make her appear more intellectual? If so, I can only wonder who outside academia would think so..

Oso Negro said...I greatly fear that the negroes of Wisconsin are threatened with extinction. They have grown so sensitive that it seems possible that some of them could be struck dead by the utterance of a single word.

His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health. “My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay,” he said. ++

The bigger picture here is our value system.In this post modern era of utopianism objectives , the most important value is peace which trumps justice, freedom and liberty. So it's not the mischaracterization that you alluded to that is disturbing, because that is a simple mistake that could be rectified easily. But your true quest "that everyone should feel comfortable.... " is the big elephant in the room. Even if those kids were being offensive to blacks, so what if they are not breaking the law. Have a big tough black offensive tackle beat the sh..t out of those kids and then see if they make fun anymore. BTW do you make students uncomfortable by giving them a hard exam. You bet you do and rightfully so. Is it more uncomfortable for your least bright student to go through college than a magna cum laude student. You bet it is. I remember (stone age)our dean telling our freshman engineering class, look to the left of you and then to the right, only one of you is going to graduate - he was right. So that's the real problem, because utopia doesn't exist and we are becoming whimps all in the name of going anal for peace.

Is that two guys getting facials in the picture? Seriously. It looks like two guys or maybe a guy and a gal. I can't tell.Because then you have to wonder, is a gay student or students involved? Or are they identifying somewhere along the gender continuum in a way that affords them special consideration? I'm not saying men don't get facials. I'm sure they do. The point is how complicated identity politics has become. Do we have two discriminated against groups coming into conflict? That could be very tricky. So many important feelings at stake. Not to mention the narrative. Can gays even be racist? Are the black students jumping to conclusions of racism because they're homophobic? Should the color of facial goo be regulated to avoid this kind of thing? But then if you only have light colored facial goo, couldn't that also be interpreted as racist?

If it was a couple of Frat boys getting facials, then it would be easy.Chancellor is a tough job these days. I'm sure the awareness seminars will help.

You can't say mau mau'd. That is either racist, or a case of cultural appropriation. After all it was the noble Kikyu of Kenya who, under the leadership of the sainted Jomo Kenyatta, found it convenient to rape and murder their white oppressors. Or something like that.

What an ordinary person would see looking at that photo is a couple of kids making fun of themselves wearing facial goo.

A University Chancellor on the other hand, views black skin as so repulsive and disgusting that he thinks anyone who consents to be photographed with blackness on their face must certainly be making some kind of statement disparaging African Americans.

Muddy Waters also comes to mind, but today's students may not know who he was, and think that was also a racial slur. Blackwater is a nonstarter, not only racially but also for the private security firm. Yellow water, uh, not a chance. Red water, even worse. Better see a doctor for that. All in all, whatever, soon to be shortened to UW Whatev, is probably best.

Do the kids in the photo have any recourse over this? Defamation lawsuit? How dare this Beverly Kopper accuse them of racist actions? Does she care, at all, of the effect that has on those two students?

The arrogance of one individual claiming to know what is in the mind of another is jaw dropping. I'd love to see THAT on trial: "Ms. Kopper, I am thinking of a number between 1 and 5000 - for your freedom: which number is it?"

Let's have these people who claim to know the minds of others put to the test.

In the seminars will they discuss how not to overreact to every little perceived slight? Maybe they could get that kid who had the swastikas taped to his door to speak. He seemed to handle the situation remarkably maturely for a college student.

This is a charming blogpost by Ann, but mostly in the sense that most fairytales are charming. Taking care not to mischararcterize any student's expression, and never to attribute malign motives to ambiguous conduct without first looking into it carefully, are standards that do not apply to anything that is inconsistent with the race/gender/ethnicity Narrative. The standard that academic institutions actually follow in these instances is "make an example to encourage others not to stray from the Narrative." Whether the particular student (or faculty member) chosen as the "example" merits that treatment is beside the point. It''s a creepy repeat of the Leninist approach to creating the New Man, that played out in the USSR in the '20s and '30s. The first go-around certainly qualified as tragedy; the repeat isn't exactly farce, especially for its victims, but has that element to it.

When I was ten or eleven, I dressed as an astronaut for Halloween. I now feel horrible, though I'm trying to figure out if I was being racists because there were no black astronauts, or mocking the "whities."

"You! lilly-white Student! You sent out a picture of yourself in blackface! STAR CHAMBER!""I was just celebrating my Black heritage.""What Black heritage?""Don't fuck with me, you racist sow.""You can't tell me you identify as Black!""I identify as multiracial."

Colleges have to be big enough to embrace racist and hate speech just like they do any other kind of speech. There are people on every campus who get offended at practically anything anyone says. If we allow them to get speech banned simply by calling it racist and hateful no one will be able to say anything but politically correct platitudes.

Hey, other college presidents get fired or are forced to resign over silly crap like this. Coupe is right. No one ever gets fired for saying everyone has to attend a diversity seminar.

Of course, each time one capitulates to this crap, the next time the price will be a little bit higher, especially in terms of one's self-respect. But one can buy a lot of self-respect for the $300,000 one gets for being the referee of the UW cage match. The very, very generous retirement package helps to heal those little hurts also.

If you're commenting here and have not looked at the posted photo, you should.Kopper libeled these two students. They should sue.(And isn't "Kopper" just the nom juste for this fine example of a Modern Uni Chancellor?)

Paul Ciotti said..."Colleges have to be big enough to embrace racist and hate speech just like they do any other kind of speech. There are people on every campus who get offended at practically anything anyone says. If we allow them to get speech banned simply by calling it racist and hateful no one will be able to say anything but politically correct platitudes."

That horse has fled the shed. Hell, that whole barn burned down a couple years ago. It's not just the universities. We are now living under a Maoist hate state where you will lose your job if the SJWs point the finger at you. This is because the Makers have been too busy making to notice what the Takers are up to.

And before we get too critical of Chancellor Kopper, what do you suppose would have happened if she had said "Oh, get over yourself! It's just a couple of kids playing with mud."? She'd be accused of being racist herself. And there is no defense against that accusation. She would be fired and blackballed.

This is what our taxes and alumni donations are paying for. The long march through the institutions is over, and they are now festering holes of toxic absurdity.

If people are this stupid to think a lone photo of two students with facial masks are in blackface the it is the end of the f#cking world. That meteor or comet should crash into the earth and wipe us all out.

This is a type of pc totalitarianism. I think references to the Red Guards are appropriate. This has nothing to do with tolerance or decency, but solely with power and thuggery. Universities have created a perverse value system where individuals are herded into racial groups in a neo-segregationist mamnner and certain groups are given a privileged position as perpetual "victims". Everything becomes a matter of not offending the subjective feelings of these privileged groups whose feelings trump everything, including facts and common sense. These privileged groups have figured out that all they have to do is feign being offended or speak in completely baseless terms about not feeling included despite being confered every conceivable advantage and college administrators cave in instantly. So-called POC can malign their fellow students as racist, slander with impunity, and white students have to take it and are forced to walk on eggshells least they commit some perceived thought crime which will bring them before the drumhead court.

Here two students got a freaking facial and the university chancellor mindlessly accused them of racism without so much as a reservation. And no one on the university campus can condemn this for the blatant nonsense it clearly is because to do so will supposedly infringe on the irrational but fully protected feelings of non-white students, whether they have these feelings or not and whether these feelings have any basis in reality. A few campus SJWs will serve as proxies for the rest, and they are never unoffended.

Seems the students' greatest error was forgetting that they are required to look at everything in their waking life through a racial lens. Nothing, no matter how innocent, is free from being branded racist.